If the ground proved loose and boggy beyond a certain point, the beam would merely be dragged under the Tank to come up again behind, clogged and dripping with mud and leaving the “ditched” Tank still wallowing on its belly.
Sometimes Tanks would thrash away with their unditching beams until their vain efforts to struggle out of some quaking quagmire on to better ground overheated the engines or caused the machine to settle down so hopelessly in the oozing mud as to be flooded out.
Save on the very worst ground, however, the unditching beam proved a most effective contrivance, and but little could have been done in the Ypres fighting without it.
A FLANDERS PILL-BOX
THE UNDITCHING BEAM IN ACTION
THE STEENBECK VALLEY BEFORE THE BATTLE
